Sierra's Homecoming (25 page)

He'd thanked the men kindly and sent them on their way, and then spent more precious time coaxing Cain and Abel to proceed. They'd been mightily reluctant to do that, and he'd finally had to threaten them with a switch to get them moving.

The whole day had gone like that, though the frustrations were at considerable variance, and by the time he'd pulled up in front of the doc's house, the worthless critters were so worn-out he knew they wouldn't make it back home. He'd sent to the livery stable for another rig and fresh horses.

Doss cleared his throat respectfully. “Hannah can't lose that boy,” he went on. “You took Gabe, and if You don't mind my saying so, that was bad enough. I guess what I want to say is, if You've got to claim somebody else, then it ought to be me, not Tobias. He's only eight and he's got a lot of living yet to do. I don't know exactly what kind of outfit You're running up there, but if there are cattle, I'm a fair hand in a roundup. I can ride with the best of them, too. I'll make myself useful—You've got my word on that.” He paused, swallowed. His face felt hot, and he knew he was acting like a damn fool, but he was desperate. “I reckon that's my side of the matter, so amen.”

He blew out the candle—it wouldn't do for the church to take fire and burn to the ground—and turned to head back down the aisle.

Doc Willaby was standing just inside the door, leaning on his cane, because of that gouty foot of his, and dressed for a long, hard ride out to the Triple M.

“You ought to tell Hannah,” the old man said.

“Tell her what?” Doss countered, abashed at being caught pouring out his heart like some repentant sinner at a revival.

“That you love her enough to die in place of her boy.”

Doss heard a team and wagon clatter to a stop out front. “Nobody needs to know that besides God,” he said, and slammed his hat back on his head. “What are you doing here, anyhow? Besides eavesdropping on a man's private conversation?”

The doc smiled. He was heavy-set, with a face like a full moon, a scruff of beard and keen little eyes that never seemed to miss much of anything. “I'm going out to your place with you. And we'd better be on our way, if that boy's as sick as you say he is.”

“What about your nephew?”

“He'd never stand the trip,” Doc said. “My bag's out on the step, and I'll thank you to help me up into the wagon so we can get started.”

Doss felt a mixture of chagrin and relief. Doc Willaby was old as desert dirt, but he'd been tending McKettricks, and a lot of other folks, for as long as Doss could remember. His own health might be failing, but Doc knew his trade, all right.

“Come on, old man,” Doss said. “And don't be fussing over hard conditions along the way. I've got neither the time nor the inclination to be coddling you.”

Doc chuckled, though his eyes were serious. He slapped Doss on the shoulder. “Just like your grandfather,” he said. “Tough as a boiled owl, with a heart the size of the whole state of Arizona and two others like it.”

Getting the old coot into the box of the hired wagon was like trying to hoist a cow from a tar pit, but Doss managed it. He climbed up, took the reins in one hand and tossed a coin to the livery stable boy, shivering on the sidewalk, with the other. Cain and Abel would be spending the night in warm stalls, maybe longer, with all the hay they required and some grain to boot, and, cussed as they were, Doss was glad for them.

He and the doc were almost to the ranch house when the lightning struck, loud enough to shake snow off the branches of trees, throwing the dark countryside into clear relief.

The horses screamed and shied.

The wagon slid on the icy trail and plunged on to its side.

Doss heard the doc yell, felt himself being thrown sky high.

Just before he hit the ground, it came to him that God had taken him up on the bargain he'd offered back there in Indian Rock at the church. He was about to die, but Tobias would be spared.

 

Someone was pounding at the back door.

Hannah muttered a hasty word of reassurance to Tobias, who sat up in bed, wide-eyed, at the sound.

“That can't be Pa,” he said. “He wouldn't knock. He'd just come inside—”

“Hush,” Hannah told him. “You stay right there in that bed.”

She hurried down the stairs and was shocked to see old Doc Willaby limping over the threshold. He looked a sight, his clothes wet and disheveled, his hair wild around his head, without his hat to contain it. His skin was gray with exertion, and he seemed nigh on to collapsing.

“There was an accident,” he finally sputtered. “Down yonder, at the base of the hill. Doss is hurt.”

Hannah steered the old man to a chair at the table. “Are you all right?” she asked breathlessly.

The doctor considered the question briefly, then nodded. “Don't mind about me, Hannah. It's Doss—I couldn't wake him—I had to turn the horses loose so they wouldn't kick each other to death.”

She hurried into the pantry, moved the cracker tin aside and took down the bottle of Christmas whisky Doss kept there. She offered it to Doc Willaby, and he gulped down a couple of grateful swigs while she pulled on Gabe's coat and grabbed for a lantern.

“You'd better take this along, too,” Doc said, and shoved the whisky bottle at her.

Hannah dropped it into her coat pocket. She didn't like leaving the old man
or
Tobias alone, but she had to get to Doss.

She raised her collar against the bitter wind and threw herself out the back door. Out in the barn, she tossed a halter on Seesaw and stood on a wheelbarrow to mount him. There was no time for saddles and bridles.

Holding the lamp high in one hand and clutching the halter rope with the other, Hannah rode out. She soon met two of the horses Doc had freed, and followed their trail backward, until the shape of an overturned wagon loomed in the snowy darkness.

“Doss!” she cried out. The name scraped at her throat, and she realized she must have called it over and over again, not just the once.

She found him sprawled facedown in the snow, at some distance from the wagon, and feared he'd smothered, if not broken every bone in his body. Scrambling off Seesaw's back, she plodded to where he lay, utterly still.

She knelt, setting the lantern aside, and turned him over.

“Doss,” she whispered.

He didn't move.

Hannah put her cheek down close to his mouth. Felt his breath, his blessed breath, warm against her skin.

Tears of relief sprang to her eyes. She dashed them away quickly, lest they freeze in her lashes.

“Doss!” she repeated.

He opened his eyes.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, sounding befuddled.

“I've come looking for you, you damn fool,” she answered.

“You're not dead, are you?”

“Of course I'm not dead,” Hannah retorted, weeping freely. “And you're not either, which is God's own wonder, the way you must have been driving that wagon to get yourself into a fix like this. Can you move?”

Doss blinked. Hoisted himself on to his elbows. Felt around for his hat.

“Where's the doc?” His features tightened. “Tobias—”

“Tobias is fine,” she said. “And Doc's up at the house, thawing out. It's a miracle he made it that far, with that foot of his.”

A grin broke over Doss's face, and Hannah, filled with joy, could have slapped him for it. Didn't he know he'd nearly killed himself? Nearly fixed it so she'd have to bear and raise their baby all alone?

“I reckon Doc was right,” Doss said. “I ought to tell you—”

“Tell me what?” Hannah fretted. “It's getting colder out here by the minute, and the wind's picking up, too. Can you get to your feet? Poor old Seesaw's going to have to carry us both home, but I think he can manage it.”

“Hannah.” Doss clasped both her shoulders in his hands, gave her just the slightest shake. “I love you.”

Hannah blinked, stunned. “You're talking crazy, Doss. You're out of your head—”

“I love you,”
he said. He got to his feet, hauling Hannah with him. Knocked the lantern over in the process so it went out. “It started the day I met you.”

She stared up at him.

“I don't know how you feel about me, Hannah. It would be a grand thing if you felt the same way I do, but if you don't, maybe you can learn.”

“I don't have to learn,” she heard herself say. “I came out into this wretched snowstorm to find you, didn't I? After I suffered the tortures of the damned wondering what was keeping you. Of
course
I love you!”

He kissed her, an exultant kiss that warmed her to her toes.

“I'm going to be a real husband to you from now on,” he told her. He made a stirrup of his hands, and Hannah stepped into them, landed astraddle Seesaw's broad, patient old back.

Doss swung up behind her, reached around to catch hold of the halter rope. “Let's go home,” he said, close to her ear.

Hannah forgot all about the whisky in her coat pocket.

It was stone dark out, but the lights of the house were visible in the distance, even through the flurries of snow.

Anyway, Seesaw knew his way home, and he plodded patiently in that direction.

Present Day

The world was frozen solid when Sierra awakened the next morning, to find herself clinging to the edge of Liam's empty bed. Voices wafted up from downstairs, along with heat from the furnace and probably the wood stove, too.

She scrambled out of bed, finger combed her hair and hurried down the hallway.

Travis said something, and Liam laughed aloud. The sound affected Sierra like an injection of sunshine. Then a third voice chimed in, clearly female.

Sierra quickened her pace, her bare feet thumping on the stairs as she descended them.

Travis and Liam were seated at the table, reading the comic strips in the newspaper. A slender blond woman wearing jeans and a pink thermal shirt with the sleeves pushed up stood by the counter, sipping coffee.

“Meg?” Sierra asked. She'd seen her sister's picture, but nothing had prepared her for the living woman. Her clear skin seemed to glow, and her smile was a force of nature.

“Hello, Sierra,” she said. “I hope you don't mind my showing up unannounced, but I just couldn't wait any longer, so here I am.”

Travis stood, put a hand on Liam's shoulder. Without a word, the two of them left the room, probably headed for the study.

“Everything Mom said was true,” Meg told Sierra quietly. “You're beautiful, and so is Liam.”

Sierra couldn't speak, at least for the moment, even though her mind was full of questions, all of them clamoring to be offered at once.

“Maybe you should sit down,” Meg said. “You look as though you might faint dead away.”

Sierra pulled back the chair at the head of the table and sank into it. “When…when did you get here?” she asked.

“Last night,” Meg answered. She poured a fresh cup of coffee, brought it to Sierra. “I hope I'm not interrupting anything.”

“Interrupting anything?”

Meg's enormous blue eyes took on a mischievous glint. She swung a leg over the bench and straddled it, as several generations of McKettricks must have done before her, facing Sierra.

“Something's going on between you and Travis,” Meg said. “I can feel it.”

Sierra wondered if she could carry off a lie and decided not to try. She and Meg had been apart since they were small children, but they were sisters, and there was a bond. Besides, she didn't want to start off on the wrong foot.

“The question is,” she said carefully, “is anything going on between
you
and Travis.”

“No,” Meg answered, “more's the pity. We tried to fall in love. It just didn't happen.”

“I'm not talking about falling in love.”

Wasn't she? Travis had rocked her universe, and much as she would have liked to believe it was only physical, she knew it was more. She'd never felt anything like that with Adam, and she
had
been in love with him, however naively. However foolishly.

Meg grinned. “You mean sex? We didn't even get that far. Every time we tried to kiss, we ended up laughing too hard to do anything else.”

Sierra marveled at the crazy relief she felt.

“Too bad he's leaving,” Meg said. “Now we'll have to find somebody else to look after the horses, and it won't be easy.”

The bottom fell out of Sierra's stomach.

“Travis is leaving?”

Meg set her coffee cup down with a thump and reached for Sierra's hand. “Oh, my God. You didn't know?”